


Being Blind

by ReddChaos



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: SO, i'm exploring that???, idk i spend a lot of time not lookin at peeps and i feel like taako does the same
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReddChaos/pseuds/ReddChaos
Summary: Taako realises he hasn't looked anyone in the eye in a while.  He does some soul searching to try to figure out why.





	1. Chapter 1

Kravitz is talking to him, talking about his work day and the things he's done and seen.  Taako looks down at his self-appointed chore, nodding and talking when appropriate, glancing up to watch his partner every so often.  His chore, of course, is making a wonderful dinner for the two of them.  Kravitz may not  _need_ to eat, but he's not about to let his bone-boy go without while he slurps up a tasty treat, now is he?  Besides, he's pretty sure he likes it.  

Pretty sure.  

He can look up and see Kravitz smile, but he can't seem to look up higher than that.  He's pretty certain Kravitz's eyes are on his food, or glancing up at him, but he can't tell for absolute, for realsy absolute sure. He's just.  He can't  _look_ that high.

 

The next day, Lup is visiting.  Barrold is.. doing whatever Barrolds do when left alone in other peoples' houses.   Lup is talking, nonstop, talking, like Kravitz, about an adventure she's gone on under the Raven Queen's orders.  Taako is suddenly aware of a hundred different memories exactly like this:  Lup is talking and Taako is listening.  She loves to talk, like him, loves to be the center of attention, loves to flirt, in a way, with narcissim and hubris, though she is at once more humble and more brazen than he is.  

The only difference is that, in those memories, he can bear to look her in the face.  

It shouldn't be difficult.  They have the same fuckin' face, after all, though her feminine charms are stronger than his, a fact he will always be secretly jealous of.  That's not to mention, either, what he gave up in Wonderland.  He's kept the disguise spell up ever since, letting it down almost never, but he knows, and that's hard.  It shouldn't be hard to look his sister in the face, however.  It never was before Wonderland, and he can't imagine that him being just a little more 'plain' would make him resent his sister's pretty face.  Even when they were growing up and she was prettier, he'd never had any trouble meeting her eye, even when they committed mild atrocities, even when they were criminals to survive, even-

Even during the darkest times.

So why couldn't he now?

He couldn't remember the color of her eyes.  He couldn't remember exactly how dark Kravitz's were. Was he sure they were even brown?  Maybe they were a dark amber, or is that basically brown?  What are Merle's?  Magnus? Lucretia,  _Lucretia_ , surely,  _surely_ he knew?  She was their Madame Director for over a year.  Surely he knew what color her eyes were?  Davenport?But he couldn't recall.  The more he thought, the more he realized that certain details of people's faces were unknown to him, the eyes the center point of this unknowing on each and every one of them.

He couldn't remember what color his eyes were.  Even if he knew Lup's, were his the same?  How identical were they, exactly?  

After she left, he went upstairs to his marble laden bathroom and stood before his mirror and tried to look up.  

His chin was pointed, gently curved.  Was that the disguise or how he actually looked now?  He couldn't quite remember, but whatever.  His cheeks were sculpted and round, not gaunt, but noticeable.  The soft swell of pudge on his face was charming, especially when he smiled, he knew.  Eyes- No, too soon, too soon.  Ears.  Long.  Very long.  Pierced four or five times over.  Cute.  Eyes?  Nope, still too soon.  Okay. 

Okay, hair.  Long, also.  Soft.  Usually kept in a braid.  Tonight, he'd opted for a bit of a man bun, perched cutely and deftly atop the back of his round head.  Yes, very cute.

Eyes? 

He'd observed all these things about himself, so surely he could use his eyes to look at, well, his eyes?

Taako tried to look immediately upon them, but no.  No, no no, too much.  Too fucking much.  Okay.  Start small again.

He started with the tips of his ears, worked his way in, traced his jaw, back up those soft cheeks, and caught a glimpse of eyelash before he had to quit.  It was too much, too intense, too  _something_.  

Again, he trailed his way up and saw white and had to stop.  His breathing was too heavy, irregular and harsh.  Why couldn't he do this?  They were his own eyes,  _dammit_.  

Angrily he met his own eyes in the mirror-

 

-and was horrified.

 

There was nothing wrong with them, but the intensity of the person behind them was too much for him, even if the person was just a reflection of himself.  It was too much.   _Too_ much.  Far, far too much.  

He was sick for a while, leaning over a pot alone in his kitchen, grateful that Kravitz was out for the night on a serious hunt for the Raven Queen and that Angus was in the middle of midterms at whichever college he was lecturing for these days.  No one was there to see him sick at the sight of his own eyes, his own personhood.

When did this happen?

He could remember looking people square in the eye when he was younger, so when did this... terror start?  

He remembers.  He thinks back, long, long back towards the beginning of their terrible strange adventure  After the tenth world destroyed by the Hunger, he couldn't do it anymore.

What was the point of meeting their eyes, knowning their names, or caring about their lives when they were all dust?  Even if the seven got the Light, it didn't mean everyone was going to survive the Hunger's attack; it didn't matter who he cared for, or wanted to care for, because they were temporary.  No matter what, so long as one of the seven made if off world with the Starblaster, they were permanent.  Taako was permanent.  Everything else was not.

And then it had gotten harder to meet the eyes of the other six.  They'd all seen and done and heard and spoke horrors, though their collective morality kept them in relative check.  It was still hard to witness colossal death year after year after year, breaks from the norm notwithstanding.  It went on and on and they'd had no assurance there was an end to it all.

And he'd gotten quite used to the idea of permanence.  Not just personally, but relational.  He had become certain, at some point, that everyone but his family, and even them, sometimes, were temporary.  Taako couldn't mourn an entire existence, he simply couldn't.  But if he met their eyes, he couldn't deny their life, their loves, their worth and value and heart.  

So he'd stopped looking.  It was too painful, and looking down just a tad was fine by him.  And soon it was easy to forget that the bodies he was talking to were people.  It was easy to allow them to die if he failed, because they weren't people in his eyes, since he hadn't met theirs.  Or at least, easier.  Nothing about the hundred year journey was easy, but some things became easier than others.  This, for him, was one of them.

But it was over now.  Taako had won- he'd been instrumental in the defeat of the Hunger, and it was over.  He was on one world, forever, now.  He had a boyfriend, a child that was tantamount to a son to him, a job, several, even, and responsibilities.  He had a life, in one place, and he belonged there.

So why couldn't he meet their eyes?  

He wanted to.  He wanted them to be people, to be real, so he could love them and be loved in turn, but he just  _couldn't_ look up.  His eyes couldn't seem to make it that far, not even on himself. 

For weeks, after realizing it, he tried.  He would walk into a room and stare at Kravitz or Angus or Lup or whoever was visiting, and try to mount his gaze higher on their faces.  He wanted them to be real.  He wanted them to be his family.

Taako just didn't know how to see them anymore.  Somewhere in between survival and struggle, he'd forgotten how to meet someone's eyes and hold them accountable in his own head for their personhood.  His life was a dream he couldn't fall into, unable to perceive them fully.  He tried and tried, but their eyes, or hints of them, scared his away, far more powerful than any of his willpower could defeat.

Taako was blind.

Taako was blind to his loved ones' faces, and he didn't know what to do about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup notices that Taako is struggling, and she thinks it's high time she does something about it.

Lup had noticed.  Of course she'd noticed when her brother stopped meeting her eyes.  He was her brother, for fuck's sakes.  

She'd noticed, too, when he'd completely stopped looking everyone else in the face, but that was how Taako minimized stress, a habit he'd always had.  When they were young, he couldn't look anyone in the face for a solid week after they'd stolen anything, whether it was food to survive or a bauble to comfort themselves with.  It made sense that it had gotten a little worse when, you know, the whole fucking world got eaten and every year, depending on their actions alone, another world had the same done to them.  It made perfect Taako sense that he might start avoiding people's gazes, especially considering how.. temporary each new year's round of people were to them.  They couldn't stay.

And then year 12 happened.  

It was the first year she'd died, and she'd beefed it pretty early in.  They had been exploring a series of cliffs and mountains, having projected it to be where the Light had landed.  She'd been making some goof or another about some formation on one of the cliff sides looking like a dick if only it had belonged to, like, a tarantula crossed with a emu, but she'd tripped halfway through her delivery and took a long, bumpy tumble down a steep, steep cliff.  

She didn't remember hitting the bottom.

And when she woke up, back on the Starblaster, back exactly where she'd first crossed one reality into another, in the same condition as she'd woken or been transported twelve times before, she was fine.  It was like a snap- one moment she'd died, and the next she was on the silver ship that transported them from world to world, fine and alive and breathing.  It wasn't even like sleep, she noticed, where on  _some_ level, no matter how deep, you know you're still alive.  When you're asleep, you're still functioning, deep down, maybe, in who knows how many layers of sub-conscious, but you are.  This?  Dying and being knit together by an extraterrestrial machine that feeds off and recreates bonds?  

That was something else, like truly not existing for a second, less than a second, less than one hundred of a millionth of a second, and then you do again.  It was horrifying.  Not to not exist, of course, but to  _come back_ from non existence.   _Knowing_ you'd been unmade for the briefest of realities,  _that_ was what was terrifying.

Somehow, though, the look on her brothers face as she reformed, his hands and arms around her shoulders protectively, clinging tighter on instinct, was by far more daunting to her.  In that he  _wouldn't_ look at her. 

Lup felt Taako's grip tighten on her shoulders, hers pressed to his chest, just as they'd been that very first time they'd pierced the barriers of realities, but when she looked at him, his eyes were over her head.  Or they'd graze what must have been the outline of her body.  His look was of total alarm and loss and fear, and it wasn't for only a brief moment, that.  He'd tried to smile, but he wouldn't look her in the eye, and the smile felt fake.  He was never fake to her, not like  _this_.

And, as far as she could recall, he hadn't really looked at her since.  It took a few weeks, she remembered, for him to even really talk like his normal self again.  He'd just been a silent observer, watching, deffo listening, but speaking as minimally as possible.  And then, like a switch, he was himself again, except, she couldn't help but notice, that he still wouldn't look at her.  The others, she could accept that, but her?  Why?  Why wouldn't he look at her?  They'd been together since  _birth_ and she couldn't imagine a little  _dying_ would put that much of a damper on their bond.  Hell, she'd watched  _him_ die year fucking  _eight_ , and he'd just come back with the back end of a joke he'd been in the middle of telling when it happened.  She was fine, so why wasn't  _he_?

The answer seemed pretty clear, cut, and dry:  she stressed Taako out.  Her dying had scared and unnerved him like nothing ever had, and Lup was not used to being the thing that stressed Taako.  She was the anti-stress.  She was the bandaid, the hot chocolate, the warm blanket, and the total reassurance.  She was  _not_ his stress, his fear.  She was the thing that utterly  _destroyed_ those things.  

So maybe she'd started doing things without him, to minimize the stress.  Maybe if he saw she was okay, he'd be okay too.  Maybe if he had time to start to miss her while he knew she was alright, he'd realize he didn't need to worry about her.  She was a big girl, she was fine.  She just wanted him to be fine, too. 

It worked, sort of.  He took his time with her more seriously, somehow, but it was in bursts.  And he still couldn't or wouldn't look her in the eye.  

In these times, she'd started hanging out with Barry more, and, well, everyone knows what came of that.  They'd fallen in love, they'd become liches together, and she'd hoped that would minimize Taako's worry for her dying again and it hadn't, not really, not even during or after the Best Day Ever.  The Seven had devised their plans for the Light, they'd made their relics, they'd brought ruin to the world that became their last,  _she'd_ become a gods-damned  _umbrella_ for like, ten fuckin' years.  And then they'd saved the world.

She'd fallen into just letting Taako not look at her; it was the new normal, as much as she missed the intimacy of looking her brother in the eye.  She was glad they were all just alive and as well off as they were, all things considered!

But then he noticed.  And she'd noticed he'd noticed.  

She'd come for a visit and he'd let her in and sat her down and was about to get her some of his  _baller_ marbled brownies he'd made that day when he just stopped.  Dead in the doorway.  And he'd turned half around, eyes nailed to the floor and slowly, so painfully slowly that she felt she didn't have the right to ask  _what the fuck_ , looked up.  But he'd jumped ship at about her knees-  _her knees what in the fuck Taako_ \- and just laughed and said,

"Nevermind, I know what you want to drink."  Like he'd been contemplating her beverage all along.  She was so unnerved that she just.  Lup just sat there.  What the fuck else could she do?  She'd known for a long time that he couldn't meet her gaze, but now she knew  _he_ knew and was trying to do something about it and struggling.  What the fuck was she supposed to do?

Taako came back with a pint of spiked cider for each of them that was mostly whiskey and a tray of his brownies and acted like nothing was wrong, and so for that day, Lup did too.

He tried again, a little more subtly, but failed, again.  And again, and again, and not just with her but with others.  Lil Ango, his sweet ghost rider boytoy, even Merle and Magnus he couldn't seem to just.  Just  _look_ at them.  One time they went out on the town to like, a million different clothing stores and they'd dressed up in the most ridiculous outfits they could fling together and at the end, they'd posed in front of a wall to wall, ceiling to floor  mirror and she'd caught him trying his damnedest to just meet his own eyes and he  _couldn't_.  

For whatever reason, Taako couldn't look anyone or anything in the eyes, and Lup had no idea how to help her brother.  She knew she had to.  She just didn't know how the fuck to do it.


	3. Chapter 3

Magnus loves dogs.  They're so easy to read, once you know what to look for.  His favorite thing is when they lean against him, completely trusting that he'll be there to hold them up.  He's only managed this with a few dogs, species and breed notwithstanding, and each time he bonds that deeply it's a really special thing.

People don't really do that.  People, even when they  _say_ they depend on him, don't always show it.  Not quite so earnestly and simply as dogs do.  Julia did.  She would lean, full weight on him, completely dependent and trusting and loving and he would lean right back.  He loved that she could feel that way, and he could feel that way back.  It was a magic thing he couldn't explain and wouldn't have wanted it to be anyway.

But before and after Julia, there were others.  Rare, of course, but now that those hundred years were returned, he remembered them.  And one, in particular, stuck in his mind.

Taako.  

He'd fallen in love with the elf man, in a small subtle way he couldn't ignore.  Even when he'd forgotten, he'd loved Taako in some way, and that carried over especially strongly after their adventures to reclaim the relics together, and even more especially afterwards.  He'd loved Julia, and he still loved her, and he still loved Taako.  It was hard to say aloud, but both facts were true.

And now, in the after, he had Taako and no Julia.

And he'd noticed that Taako didn't meet his eyes. 

It was a hard thing swallow, because, well, Taako leaned into him like Julia had.  Full weight, completely trusting, on casual occassions or otherwise.  He'd always leaned on Magnus, after the first ten or fifteen years together.  They'd had some kind of conversation together and Taako stood close and Magnus had put his hand on his shoulder and instead of shying away from the contact Taako leaned into it, into him, and that was when Magnus knew he loved Taako.  Not just as a friend, but as something slightly more.  Maybe not entirely romantically, but definitely more than just platonically.  

During their time as Reclaimers under Madame Director Lucretia, who was really their friend, Taako had taken to what Magnus mentally dubbed as The Lean, pretty quickly, and Magnus adored it.  It reminded him of Julia and of other times he couldn't quite remember, but felt, deep in his heart like the thoughts and the heartbeats that made him Magnus Burnsides.

Now, in the After, Taako avoided Magnus.  Physically, visually, all of it.

It hurt.  A lot.  He loved Taako, and he couldn't understand why, after remembering all of everything, he would choose to avoid him.  Maybe the fact that he'd loved Julia when he couldn't remember Taako hurt him, now that both of them knew.  But he did still love Taako!  That hadn't changed when he'd loved Julia, just added to his loves!  

Now he could remember both, but Taako seemed to prefer to forget about him.  The world was saved and they had no work related excuses to hang out, and he had Kravitz, after all.  Magnus couldn't fault him for having fallen in love with someone else, for, well, he had.  If Magnus was allowed to love Julia, then Taako was allowed to love Kravitz.  And even if he wasn't, Taako was still allowed to do whatever he wanted, because that's how he rolled.

Still, the avoidance... it was disappointing.  They'd come to be friends again during their time as Reclaimers, and then they'd remembered it all... and now they were nothing? It hurt.  It hurt a lot.  

Magnus had even talked a bit with Kravitz, who'd heard as much as anyone else had, and accepted that Magnus loved Taako, just didn't seem sure if the same was true in reverse.. and advised caution in the most honest way possible.  Magnus believed him, and so hadn't done anything in a good, long while.

But this was getting ridiculous.

He was sitting across from Taako at a cafe, having a really good time and they were chatting, just like before, and Taako would look up and then swiftly down, not meeting his eyes.  He could see that Taako was trying to meet his gaze, he could tell, but he couldn't, for the life of him, tell why it was so hard.

Magnus tried so hard to remember the last time he'd looked or gotten Taako to look him in the eye, and suddenly, so suddenly, he couldn't remember.

For as long as he'd known him, as long as he'd loved him, he couldn't remember ever meeting Taako's eyes.  Sure, he'd looked himself, but when had Taako ever met  _his_?  

And that was fine.  Some people were like that- couldn't stand the contact.  Magnus got it and allowed it and it was all fine.

Until Taako started to visibly try to do it, and couldn't.

It was another coffee meetup, a long chat over some coffee that he'd inevitably magick into something else, and in the middle of Magnus telling a story about a particularly spirited deer hound, Taako had looked up and came  _so fucking close_ to meeting Magnus' eyes.

But he hadn't, not quite, and Magnus had lost track of the story and couldn't seem to remember how to pick it up again.  He'd blundered a bit, trying and failing to recall what had happened, what the story was even about, the words he'd been using,  _anything_ , and he couldn't.

Taako quickly excused himself after that, never once meeting his gaze, though he definitely was trying and it both hurt and comforted Magnus.  He'd left, and Magnus was left staring after the elf man for several minutes, wondering what in the fuck was going on with him.  

What in the fuck was going on, and how in the fuck could he help the elf he loved?


End file.
